The Saturday Club at ToH is run by Wellington Chinyere and attended by a regular group of 23 children. They engage in a range of activities including singing songs about nature to mbira music, playing games together, researching the qualities of the indigenous trees that are being propagated as saplings, recording the growth of the various plants through drawing and supporting the ToH team with watering and weeding tasks. The have also developed their own vegetable garden and orchard adjacent to the tree nursery. In all these activities the principles of permaculture have been shared and applied.
Particular skills that have been developed have included the re use of waste materials that have been collected around the ‘growth point’ where there are shops that sell food, drinks and snacks. The plastic bottles that they gathered were refashioned as watering cans. Other plastic materials reworked into strips for weaving mats and usable bags.
On one occasion the children were supported to meet with elders from the community and to address these questions with them.
How should we protect or value the resources of Trees of Hope for our community?
Together as a community, what can we do to restore our forestry to what it was like a long time ago?
As juniors we are the leaders of tomorrow? What action can we take to protect our community?
The EECAT researchers from the University of Zimbabwe have attended the Saturday Club sessions and have noted the high quality learning environment and learning relationships that are evolving. They attribute this success in part to the use of Shona, the children’s mother tongue, as a means of communication and to the cultural relevance of the activities that are offered. Wellington shares a weekly report on the activities through WhatsApp with the UK based team.
